


Becoming

by evil_bunny_king



Series: Fic Exchanges <3 [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: DAficswap, F/M, Pre-Relationship, breach closing shenanigans, red lyrium shenanigans, rift magic shenanigans, where shenanigans is a code word for angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:10:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4537506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evil_bunny_king/pseuds/evil_bunny_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There'd be no way back for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming

The breach had breathed, at times.

Back in those early days, before Mera Lavellan discovered what the slurry of ash, blood and dirt tasted like, or the way the dead could haunt her even as their living counterparts walked at her side (she’d seen shadows beneath her companions’ skins for months afterwards - as if the lyrium rot from before/later/never was already rooted in their bones. Eventually, she'd learn to stop flinching.)

She’d breathe with it, when it did. All of the tears in the veil would keen at the presence of the mark - folding into themselves until they’d break into that same rhythm, that same shudder like breath. It was predictable - like clockwork, to use the dwarf’s phrase. Like the cries a creature makes as it curls around the arrow that felled it.

So she’d pause. Tip her head back. Feel her growing hair curl against the folds of her inquisition-issued scarf as she synced her breaths to the throb of the magical gyre.

In, out – sharper, for the inhale; then the long hiss of release.

(and yes she clung to it - for all that it hurt and for all that it tore because it, at least, she knew. the shems. their maker. their heralds and gods and promises and lies and all of this despair and keeper, hah’ren, why did you send me? And where did our makers go-?)

She played it off as pain. For it was painful – the anchor would burn at their shared gasp (rift and girl) and the shock would force more air into already-filled lungs - twist the fire that little bit deeper into her palm, as if muscle and sinew were searing anew.

But the pain was part of the rhythm, too. Not only hers but the magic's as well, somehow. These moments were ones they’d share, hurting together. Breathing together.

And if it wove her tighter into it, if her power dissolved as well into the throbbing core of the mark and if it changed what it didn’t drain - then what else could she do? She couldn’t stop it, even if she wanted to. At least it was a comfort. As impossible as she knew that was. As familiar and terrible as she knew that was.

 

-

 

She’d considered asking Solas about it, once. When a particularly powerful spasm of pain had sent her to her knees a few meters before the large, time-warped rift in Redcliffe; when she’d keeled over backwards into the dirt from the agony of it, triedto focus on her breathing - the rhythm shaken but there, still there.

Until a wave of relief had suddenly eased the initial swell. Cool fingertips, pressed against her temples.

And when she’d cracked her eyelids open, Solas was staring back down at her.

There'd been concern on his features. He'd bent over her in the dirt, lifted her head to his lap and trailed a hand to her side so he could hover it over the mark.

The questions had gathered, then. Waited for her dry throat to swallow, for the pain to abate so she could ask. Solas, who knew so much, who was so wise and so thoughtful, despite his estrangement from the people -surely he would understand what was happening to her; surely he would-

But then she’d seen his expression. The sorrowful certainty in his eyes, successfully tucked away but for the frustration that betrayed it.

He already knew. Even before she could get the words together to ask, he _knew -_  understood her dilemma probably more than she ever would, for reasons she’d never get the chance to learn and as she looked into his gaze, the regret that warred there - she saw that he knew that there was nothing that could be done.

Fury bubbled through despair and she grasped it, wrangled it for the energy to beg him to keep trying - for how- how could he just give up on her now,  _how dare he_  – she was right here in front of him, still fighting, there had to be something that they could do if he just- he just-

But the pain had kept her immobile, useless. Staid the hasty words until the steady warmth of the elfroot draft could work her muscles back to life and by the time she’d managed to crawl back to her feet, he’d already retreated behind the others, waiting for the rift to let loose the next onslaught of demons.

She'd faced the oncoming wave with a snarl, attributing the tears on her cheeks to the throb of the mark, the headache that pounded against her thoughts.

She’d never asked for this. Never wanted this. She’d slipped into the conclave’s on her keeper’s request, an eager 'apprentice' spying on human wars; cowled, naive, coating Mythal’s sygils in a paste to hide them, casting her gods and her faith aside for pointless squabbles and a pointless quest.

But here she was, and she was dying. As surely each flare of magic through the mark made the joints of those fingers stiff. As surely as the breach wheezed along with her.

How could he sit there, with his sad acceptance and his piecemeal magic, patching the symptoms? How could he delay the inevitable and do nothing more?

 

-

 

She'd laid awake at their camp that night, hunched in her single tent. Staring, desperately, unseeingly, into the infinity that simmered in her palm.

It wasn’t Solas’ fault.

The thought sat dully in the pit of her stomach.

 

-

 

When it came to the final attempt to seal the breach, with the ragged mages of Redcliffe arrayed behind her across the cemetery that had once been an Andrastean temple, she’d been certain it would kill her.

She’d seen it. In the haze of the magister's red future, the breach had been a constant, silent scream – one unending and alien, agonised, scratching at her thoughts as she'd struggled to find her way back to the present. And the mark, it- it had never been so quiet, before. It'd drained from her own magic when she'd tried to seal the rifts, with new ones simply cracking open in her wake, a rolling fracture that splintered reality. After her third attempt she’d stopped trying entirely. Just stumbled on and on, with Dorian at her heels.

The veil of that time had already been lost. She knew that. It had shattered when she’d tried to hold it together, biting back at her magic: the growing crescendo of an implosion that had begun at the conclave.

Nonetheless, it proved to her the inevitability of this moment, and how it had to end.

Such power, broken or tainted - it was uncontrollable. All consuming. Beyond grasp. Maybe she would succeed in sealing it - maybe the veil could be healed, as impossible as it seemed, and peace restored for however long that would last but she, she wouldn’t survive to see it.

She’d never thought to be a healer. She’d lacked the inclination, the patience - spent the hot, heavy summer days being tutored in the keeper’s aravel gazing longingly outside, more interested in the static potential building in the afternoon air than the medical lectures Deshanna attempted to impart.

She wondered if she should regret that, as she took her position before the base of the rift.

The evening light barely pierced the wash of smoke and fog that still surrounded the blast site, clouds of it billowing by her knees as she placed herself before the pillar of temple that remained standing. She focused on it, shivering. It jutted from the earth like a broken jaw, the shattered teeth of its floors distorted by the breach.

(would she have been sent, if she’d chosen such a path? ‘We can’t afford to lose you, da’len, please, stay – with us, with the campfire and the aravels; go grind elfroot in the warm twilight, dinner will be ready soon’)

She flinched as the rift took another of its shudders of breath, one quickened by anticipation- or maybe the seconds were slipping faster through her fingers, fueled by the blood roaring in her ears.

It wasn’t  _fair_  – and that made her sound like a child but it was true, it was - and self-pity mixed with acrid bitterness as she gathered her wits, took independent breath, and tried to find her courage.

She had to do it.

There would be no more summer evenings, no more flat bread and rabbit stew, no more fireside tales - no clan if she did not go through with this.

It had to be done and even if she couldn’t accept it, she’d do it anyway.

Her heartbeat skipped as her companions peeled away. She was trembling, uncontrollably, fingertips tingling.

“Mages!”

_don’tthinkdon’tthink_

“Focus past the herald! Let her will draw from you!”

_Mythal protect me-_

The shuddering magics pulsed, their joint pain igniting like a fire in her palm as she stepped forward and began to channel the gathering power into the mark - and then there was a pause like a forced, choked gasp before it began to  _burn_.

The scalding pain clawed deep, forcing their shared inhale. Shredding, shredding and burrowing- but why was it  _clawing,_ it felt like it lodged formless fingers into her flesh, gouging with blunt nails as the magic scraped itself beneath and down-

She forced herself onwards. _Farther_ , more – she muscled forwards until the pain was blinding and she was screaming, she felt herself screaming, the sounds torn from her chest and echoed in the snarl above-

The vortex throbbed. Reached towards her, grasped at her- and she had to be close-  it had to be - close enough (she couldn't handle anymore she was going to shake apart she was going to shatter she-).

Battling the winds that buffeted her like raven wings, she threw her arm upwards, pouring her power and her will into the mark on her hand.

Intensity. Light. Agony.

For a moment she couldn’t see, blinded by the inferno that burst from above and from the centre of her palm, erupting through the night.

Then-

There was a web of magic across the sky. Tangled streams of it, emerald, overlaid across her sight and yet not – she could see the storm clouds swirling above, unobscured; both, neither. The weave of power caressed her skin and simultaneously scored to the bone.

The breach's first breath ends. Brief relief – she reached forward, instinctive, blind-

Each stream of magic was a tapestry. Landscapes painted with a script she didn’t know, flowing beautifully along ever changing rivers and valleys across a verdant/blue/verdant sky and she followed their transformations, scrambling for purchase, panicking as the next breath began to swell (too soon, too soon-)

There!

She found a bunched tear in the weave. Crouched in the centre of the web, its broken strands unraveling even as they snapped at the air, angry and alive and she took a shaking step towards it, reaching out, an unknown language thundering in her ears.

Acting on intuition alone, she focused the mark’s magic, seized hold of the broken pieces and  _pulled_.

The mark shrieked at the contact. The connection was a writhing, scratching thing, slicing at her skin as she struggled to drag the sides together and she pulled against an immensity that she felt to her core, knew somehow in the humming in her bones. With each effort she felt like she was disintegrating. The combined power of the mage host was draining into the mark, and it scoured past her arms, her thoughts, chipping parts of her away as it went.

She didn’t stop.

An inch, a foot- their shared rhythm broke with a gasp that shook her, and at last she brought her hands together with a shout, taking this last freedom for her own.

She was dimly aware of staggering closer, whipped by hurricane winds, her hair slapping sharply against her cheek. Of falling to her knees, the jagged grit of the rubble cutting through her leggings, pricking speck of blood to join the blood flowing from the gashes on her hands and flowing, dissolving, into the magic rioting above-

Then the veil snapped itself together again, releasing her with the suddenness of a thunderclap.

She fell forward at the collapse of resistance, barely lifting her hands in time to catch herself. Stared at the solid rock beneath her, felt the familiar yet softer ache that throbbed in her palm - the sharp, new pains of the cuts that littered her hands and forearms, blood oozing slowly across her skin. She could feel the veil retreating, too. It exchanged its grip for a winding caress, something almost like a purr tingling against her consciousness before it receded back to the peripheries, and her muscles quivered in her forearms at the recognition, too drained to hold her up for much longer.

She blinked at the sharp smell of ozone and the musk of starting rain, the calm that was settling around her.

Fresh. Earthy.  _Real_.

She was alive.

 

-

 

It was Solas who reached her first, his face and tunic smeared with ash and dirt. He cast a gentle magic as he helped her to her knees, sealing her cuts and bruises, and produced a rag to wipe the trails of blood they left behind.

“It is often said that the healer has the bloodiest hands,” he said with a tired smile, meeting her eye as he took the marked hand in his own. He worked the cloth carefully around her knuckles, rasping it gently over the trembling stretch of her palm, while he could only blink back at him, ears still ringing in the silence. “Although it is perhaps not meant so literally. Nonetheless. You did well, _lethalin_.”

He tucked the rag away when a clatter of armour announced the seeker staggering towards them, although he kept his hand on her shoulder, maintaining the spell until the last traces of her wounds faded.

She'd barely managed to scrape together a smile – _lethalin_ \- before the Seeker descended.

Mera was pulled to her feet and swept into celebrations, the raptures of relief and congratulations continuing until the war cries of Corypheus’ crazed Templars echoed down the mountains, destroying what little light they'd managed to foster against the darkness.

It was only after the battle that followed that she remembered his words, hunched in layers of blankets on the edge of a travel cot in the shelter of a hasty tent.

 

–

 

The rifts didn’t breath, after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Final submission for Round 1 of the DAFicswap on tumblr. <3 This one's for ratjay, with her lovely OC Mera Lavellan. Liberties have been taken... primarily with the Solas/Lavellan angle. :x This is an alternate version exploring the potential of that side a little more. Couldn't resist.
> 
> Hate-hate titles. :(


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